Factory, i said we really need another location to try to stimulate sales. Well explain why the owner of a mattressmaking business refused to lie down and take it in the face. Until then, remember we make your business our business. Weve all had those moments. When you lost the thing you cant believe you lost. When what you just bought, just broke. Or when you have a little trouble a long way from home. As an American Express cardmember you can expect some help. But what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. Spends like cash. Feels like membership. Good morning from new york. Military forces in chad claim to vo killed the mastermind at a gas facility in january. His death has not been confirmed. Voters in switzerland are the tightest controls. Executive pay in the world including giving veto power. I am joined by msnbcs chief economist and policy director to joe biden. The chair of the Economics Department at the university of kansas city and the new economics perspective blog. Back to the future of a 1980s explaining the world we live in now. The director of budget and policy of conservative americans that advocates a National Single flat tax. We are 32 hours into washington budget cuts. The government is now phasing in a series of across the board spending cuts and they had discretionary programs with 1. 2 trillion over ten years. He refused to be part of a deal to replace the sequester. How much more money do we want to steal from the American People to fund more government . Im for no more. The economic damage from the latest selfinflicted wound will almost certainly cause hardship for hundreds of thens of struggling americans. 150,000 people can lose their job and take a major hit. If you know one thing for sure, for each of these battles, first of debt ceiling and remarks like boehners have been damaging with the goppo brand. Most americans would like a deal to consist of new spending cuts and revenue. A Washington Post poll published wednesday found that just 26 of americans approve of the way they are handling public spending. By contrast, 43 approved of the way president obama is handling spending. Republicans seem to be failing political low and achieving at the goals and setting the terms of the debate in washington. Everyone is talking about how it best to achieve austerity and no one is talking about how to get back to full employment as the president said. Not only congress, but washington in general spends all its time talking about deficits and not a lot of time talking about how do we get out of this. The lone few voices of sanity has been memberses of the congressional caucus. They remain marginalized in getting people to focus on the deficit. Many call it a victory despite their costs. They set up the cuts and said this will be the first significant victory. What we got will set out in changing washington. The trajectory of peoples way that they are being spun. The sequester is a bad thing and its obamas fault hence the hash tag. At the end they said its a good thing. I felt like members of the tea party caucus. They said look, this is what we wanted. Paul ryan said this in 2011. Do you view this as a success for fellow travelers . Absolutely. I think you are right in terms of republicans. The last part i would point out is if we are talking about the balanced approach with revenues and spending cuts, thats the fiscal cliff. That was part of this debate. For started last year. We were supposed to have the biggest hike in history. They kicked out three months, but if you are looking for revenues, you already had it. It runs a good article and with the sequester in place, we are on track to get the 4 trillion of deficit deduction. A small amount of people would tuck too each other. That was the target. With the sequester we have, the ratio of spending cuts for the one. Simpson bowles was 21. If you are looking in terms of the raidio, its the spending cut side. Madi did a thing that republicans do which is Start Talking about the tax increases that had a part of the fiscal curb deal. I dont see why you get the spending cuts that started with the budget control act. If you add on the other trillions in ongoing cuts, you get to the ratio. Regarding your introduction, another person has been talking about this in terms of jobs which i believe is the most immediate deficit we face. It is i think a very bad out come that republicans and democrats have contributed to that were stuck in hair on fire deficit obsession of which i believe is a medium or longterm constraint and not an immediate one. Its important what you said about democrats. Bill clinton and i am not blaming him, but he touted surpluses. Talking about surpluses and deficits as opposed to job and it is economy. This is the box that politics are now in. Dick cheney was the guy who said deficits dont matter. To a point they dont matter. If you are a conservative, you looka the size, but you dont care the government is not taking, but that they are overspending. Thank you for being honest. Conservatives dont care about the deficit. Its the rhetorical device. Its not the product we are focusing on. 1,000 true. I dont see why its a problem to say that. Size of government is the problem. Thats what you care about. Dont you use it to reduce the size of government . The size of government means many, many things. Deficit, that relates to people and its a narrative that people understand. I dont think it does relate to people, but i agree. You want to make sense to ignore when they care for the deficit. The people who are ideologically committed to reducing the size of government. George bush was not someone who cared about the size of government. Thats correct. Is he the token republican . Hes not a token. He led the party for eight years. In a certain sense its making the reagan argument. By saying we should be focused on jobs and growing the economy. And stephanie, you are an academic who does Academic Work concluding what dick cheney sides right. Its not that the deficits dont matter, but they dont matter in the way people think they matter. The democrats give them help along the way and focus on the deficit and use that for cover to do the things they want to do. Go after the progressive ooh jenda and dismantle and undermine the Great Society and the new deal and pull apart the things. Heres the thing about that. This gets to what i think is fascinating. My emerging pet theory is that the Republican Party, im not convinced. I used to be convinced they wanted to go after Social Security and medicare. Based on their behavior, i am convinced they dont want cuts to medicare and Social Security. They dont want to make cuts to current beneficiaries. Thats their base. B, poll republicans about Social Security. Tea party. Wildly unpopular. If they really wanted cuts to Social Security and medicare. They could have had it by now. It is extended time and time again. I want to show the president complaining about the fact that he tried to give them this and they wont take yes for an answer. They talked about the deficit reduction. I put forward a claim that calls for serious spending cuts and entitlement reforms and goes right at the problem that is at the heart of a longterm deficit problem. I offered negotiations around that that offers a balanced approach. And its nowhere. An off the record briefing said if the president would offer Something Like chain cpi which is a different calculation, in real terms, they said if you get somewhere, thats in the onepage thing they propose. Hold that thought. I want to take a break and come back and talk about who wants to cut entitlements. After this. 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Ask your rheumatologist about humira, to help relieve your pain and stop further joint damage. Its delicious. So now weve turned her toffee into a business. My goal was to take an idea and make it happen. Im janet long and i formed my Toffee Company through legalzoom. I never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. Go to legalzoom. Com today and make your business dream a reality. At legalzoom. Com we put the law on your side. The only thing republicans want more than getting out Social Security and entitlements is not compromising with the president. That seems to be the case to me. They are being handed this. The president said we will go with you and make the cuts and they said no, we dont want them. To understand the republican position you have to understand that their major objective goals one, two, and three is shielding high income people from any tax increase. Thats where it hits. They also say they are for Smaller Government, but since they as you suggest and you do as well, dont want to touch the entitlements for ten years and then after that probably another ten years. That doesnt leave a lot, but they are wacking away with the budget and tends to fall on low income people. I disagree entirely. Republicans dont want to cut entitlements and i would argue they want to save entitlements. Thats what you see in House Republican budgets that have passed the house. By making the benefits smaller or changing them. The other point is that republicans dont want to cut defense spending. What are we sitting here talking about . Hold on a minute. Shes right. There two views. That was belated. You got the revenues january 1. Back in my state of colorado, i remember this seminole moment where the republicans and the Tea Party Republicans are talking about cutting government and the sequester government starts a couple of senators talk about how we cant cut defense. Cutting defense would mean a loss of jobs and National Security and i made the point thaw cant say defense creates jobs. Part of the thinking behind the sequester is republicans are so against defense cuts they will come to the table. There enough republicans who dont feel it. They came to be okay with it. Heres my alternative proposal. This is a poorly designed thing. It turned out like a nerf. Everyone was comfortable. Heres whey say to get people to get a deal. You have to find something that everyone in washington really hates. If you top the come to a deal, a 1 trillion Combo Program and Debt Forgiveness program, that will get people to the table. If they dont come up with a deal as the government starts doing a correct hiring of people, half of it is hiring and half is Debt Forgiveness. The problem was, they thought search going to hate this so much they will come to the table, the republicans came to stop the defense cuts. You are talking about republicans winning. As a small government and libertariantype, this is promising for someone like me who sees republicans. I think thats the big question. Is it only a conserfative victory. You could make the argument that the sequestration cuts to defense are a backdoor thing. They have been in that argument. From the perspective that we still have 8 unemployment, whats so perverse is there is a broad consensus that we need a shortterm Counter Cyclical policy and the deficit problems are genuinely midto longterm. What happened is the absolute reverse. Nothing happened in any of these deals to do anything about the midto longterm. The Affordable Care act has been about shortterm construction. Austerity and none of the stuff that the. Pete ersons of the world do. Its a perverse out come. Not only austerity, but we have absolutely no reason to suppose that there is a medium or longterm problem. The problem is reflective in somebody calculating and forecasting inflation in the future. Thats when you know you have concerns about the deficit. You are going to see there is an inflation forecast. It means we will have too much demand and inflation in the future. Where is the credible study and the forecast . Where is the Market Pricing . Where is it anywhere that the deficit is a problem. Explain what tips are. Those are securities that investors can pile into with inflation over the longterm. It is absolutely not there. Not in medium or shortterm. The republicans by and large have convinced everybody that we have this longterm deficit problem. They are able to sell this austerity in the shortterm. If its coming, we might as well act now and thats how you get people to support the awful policies that make the conditions worse. I want to make the argument that barack obama is the only man in washington who is being honest about what he is trying to do. People have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. But they havent experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. In fact, in a recent survey, 95 of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. Visit fastreliefchallenge. Com today for a special trial offer. You dont decide when vegetables reach the peak of perfection. The vegetables do. At green giant, we pick vegetables only when theyre perfect. Then freeze them fast so theyre are as nutritious as fresh. [ green giant ] ho ho ho. Green giant busy in here. Yeah. Progressive mobile is. [ everybody have fun tonight plays ] really catching on people can do it all get a quote, buy and manage your policy [ music stops ] its great well, whats with the. 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And verizons got more fast lte coverage than all other networks combined. So its better. Yes. Oh, why didnt you just say that . Huh what is he doing . The hair on fire brigade. What was remarkable, this is basically enunciating that he is with the president. He doesnt say that, but the concept is what barack obama is offering. Take a listen. A program like Simpson Bowles that had about 3 of spending cuts for every dollar of revenue, and all the attacks all of the a r aspects on the budge uh which is on the table, they are all on the table. Its the right way to approach this problem. I would be much happier with a program that was focused on longterm and as i say had investment in the shortterm. That is basically Barack Obamas position. What i find ironic is the only person in washington who genuinely wants a grand bargain is barack obama. And also the menacing bully that famously threatened. They want it. They believe in it and i dont think they are playing politics when they say it. The irpy and the beltway obsessed with this are most angry barack obama for not getting it done. Even though he is the only person who wants it. The politics in washington are no longer about dealing with it. There was a closing window and ability to make any kind of deal. We talk on your show a couple of months ago about how barack obama himself has become the culture war. Anything he does is what the republicans have to be against. You say his name and among the Republican Base is fires up. When the republicans go back to their districts and they have to worry about mostly a primary. As opposed to facing a democratic opponent. Whatever barack obama is proposing, they dont want to face a republican opponent. In anyone has a doubt of what they say is true, remember back to the campaign where they made a twopart argument. The president refuses to tackle entitlements. He wants to cut your medicare. Enough said about that. I think where the problem comes is that the president recognizes that there we disagree on this, but there long pressures particularly on health care spending. That is a larger problem. It is an economic constraint. Some president who is a very intelligent guy who recognizes inefficiencies, but when you bring that into this context, it turns into slash and burn and cut social insurance in ways that are unacceptable to me and most of the American People. You guys dont want to, americans and taxes and the constituency you represent. Do you want to cut spending and keep taxes low . Thats the thing. If you are saying that the republican position is antiobama, for our part, its hard to see what that is. He takes credit for the cuts and talks about turning off the sequester. He talks about complexity in the tax code and in the same breath he talks about new credits and tax treatment for Energy Companies he likes a